


A Different Kind of Danger

by clutzycricket



Series: For and Against the Devil [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Aegon is a little shit, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Demon!Targs, Demons, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, M/M, Multi, Multiple Crossovers, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Parent-Child Relationship, Secret Crush, Sibling Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-04-13 07:30:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4513224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clutzycricket/pseuds/clutzycricket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Sack, the City's magic users are fragmented for years.</p><p>In the months between the deaths of Jon Arryn and... what happens, a few different people observe the new storm and think about the costs of rebuilding from the ashes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Don't Judge Me So Harsh

**Author's Note:**

> Story title from Delilah by Florence and the Machine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "Playboy Mommy" by Tori Amos.

1.

Lysa knows better than to think she can go to Riverrun House when Jon Arryn dies, or Winterfell. Catie’s great, in her way- she tried when Mom died, Lysa can admit, but she wasn’t old enough for Lysa to take her sister acting like mom well.

And she’d been too much of a goody-two-shoes, not like Lysa, who snuck about like Uncle Bryn in his stories. Lysa, who had seen Dad go down to the basement after Mom died with the too-shiny knife, and…

Well, “Family, Duty, Honor” and all that bullshit. Everyone knew about the Whents and Harrenhal, and the dead who don’t always stay dead.

Lysa knew they looked at her and whispered the same, and she wanted to scream at them, about the binding spell her father had used on her to get her to agree to marry Jon Arryn, the illusion spell on Catie so she didn’t put up a fuss.

No one would believe her, not after have her mind locked in a cage for fifteen years. She knows some of them think she killed her cold, cold husband, and she smiles at the thought, because if she did it, it was self-defense.

So she and Robin live in the Eyrie, where only Targaryen magic can reach, and the dragon’s power was broken the same time her dreams were.

2.

She refuses to mourn. She cuts her hair in a cute short cut Jon would have disapproved of, buys make-up again, and most importantly, takes Robin to actual doctors.

One of them looks at his file and looks ready to call Child Protective Services, until Lysa mentions that her late husband wasn’t very fond of… traditional medicine.

The doctor, who is her age and female, reads Robin’s file again, eyes narrowing when she reads how old Jon was when Robin was born, then looking at Lysa, who is still not quite thirty-five.

“Your late husband?” the doctor says, with a special kind of lightness that Lysa knows means something else now that she and Robin aren’t dealing with someone in the know.

“Yes,” Lysa says, with a sour frown. “We disagreed on Robin’s treatment.” Jon wanted it kept quiet, a few trusted souls bound with magic. Lysa wanted proper specialists.

“I can recommend a specialist out of either Presbyterian or the Mayo in Rochester,” the doctor said. “But I want to keep an eye on him too.”

“I understand,” Lysa said, because all she wanted was to keep her son safe.

3.

She made the wind dance in the hot, soupy summers as a girl when their clothes stuck to them and even Edmure wasn’t able to do more than move when they were kicked out to the yard, even sending a light misting of water from the stream, and Petyr had bowed at her, low and eyes sparkling as if she was the most wonderful thing he’d ever seen.

Catie could heal, send cool streams of magic that ensnared sickness and she used to humor her little sister’s vanity, but Lysa could use her magic for adventures and grand gestures, Petyr said.

He was the only one who told her she was destined for greatness, as a girl, and it had made her giddy.

4.

Uncle Bryn thinks she did it, she knows, and isn’t sure what to make of her. He had helped her, she knew, when he could, and she’d seen the puzzled, helpless look that explained why he and Father never truly parted ways.

Family, Duty, Honor, all bound in a spell. She supposed it wasn’t as bad as rumors of what old Craster did, or Walder Frey, who some said drained his wives to keep death at bay.

So when Uncle Bryn leaves when Father gets ill with cancer, they trade knowing glances and she kisses his cheek.

“Call me if you need me, Little Fish,” he said, and she knows that even if he thinks her Danelle Lothston come again, he still loves her.

She hopes.

5.

She watches nervously as the winds take on an uncertain edge. She was always most like their mother, who could whistle the winds and catch warnings from them.

It was why she never wore silver, unless commanded to.

The Lannisters had encircled Robert Baratheon like clinging shadows, and cruel Cersei’s oldest boy is hunting her niece like prey.

Lysa had heard so much, bound with invisible thread, but she kept to the Eyrie and to her son, and ignored those who thought to control the widow of the Eyrie’s master.

She would not be controlled again, and her son would not suffer the strings of Tully ambition, if sh had to let the city burn for it.

6.

Robin is getting bored, and from what Lysa knows of accounts, Lysa can do something to make her boy smile.

So she decides to have some fun, and sorts out with Catie and her wild younger daughter some promising possible investments that might also make Robin smile.

She reads the ideas and shows Robin some of the art some of them attached, spending a few days enjoying her son’s attention and giggling over his reaction.

They choose a computer game that Lysa would have enjoyed if it was a novel and has art Robin likes, and she wishes she could safely let him play that sort of thing.

7.

The letter was on light green paper, with dark grey copperplate writing.

It was simple, three lines, asking Lysa to meet again.

Lysa stared at the letter from Petyr, wondering what to do.


	2. one foot on the platform

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What Renly Baratheon remembers is as important as what he doesn't show the world.
> 
> (Tarot card games, poisonous illusions, and Loras' smile when they are finally alone.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from House of the Rising Sun, covered by so many artists (Lauren O'Connell's is lovely and haunting.)

1.

 

There are three important things to know that Renly remembers.

Renly remember playing with Rhaenys and Sarella, Before. (Stannis knows this, because he taught Shireen how to play the version of tarot go fish that they made up just before Lyanna ran away. Robert probably knows this, because he can never be kind to Cersei, who smiles cruelly when he is introduced to her by a drunken Robert After.)

He remembers the Siege, where sorcerers had sent shadows and illusions outside the grounds of Storm’s End, Stannis gritting his teeth and the pressing feeling of magic on his skin. (He charms or annoys everyone into making him think he’s forgotten this, except Loras, who wormed his way into his heart with his lack of guile and fierce love.)

He remembers the terms of his parent’s wills better than he should. Definitely better than is good for Cersei and Robert. (No one knows that, except for Shyra Haystack, who works for Elia Martell and is a damn good lawyer.)

 

2.

 

He and Loras want to start a game company, because they can do it. He’s brilliant at promotion, part of his magic, and Loras is brilliant at storytelling. They just need a few more people to help get everything up.

Well, they have Willas, who is brilliant at programming and knows a few other people, but what really works is when Rhaenys drops one of her rare, cryptic emails telling him to meet someone at a cafe downtown.

Brienne is one of the few people as tall as him, and awkward with it, but the work she shows him is fucking amazing, and he lights a candle for Rhaenys two weeks later when he realizes that she is what makes it all _click_. Even if Loras pouts when he says it, because then he just gets to spin Loras and remind him that Loras is what keeps him going, most days.

It starts simply enough, the idea of a questing group, but they fuck with the setting and the idea of same sex romance isn’t even a question, because Renly and Loras are financing this, basically, though Oberyn Martell is an investor and a wickedly smiling Lysa Tully, who offers them cheap office space. Renly is the one who makes sure at least one of the characters is genre-savvy, and they make it a fun part of the plot.

 

3.

 

Robert is a bastard about the game, and Stannis merely gives him a flat look, but Myrcella seems enthusiastic, especially when he gives her a sketch of her in a rogue’s costume. (Shireen gets a captain costume with a feathery hat that Brienne drew and shoved in his pocket, and he burned with shame on the way down to Storm’s End.)

He still tries to spend as little time at home as possible, because Tywin Lannister is there, and that man…

Besides, he has a plan, and as good a liar as he is, he doesn’t want to do it all the time, not when he has to spend so much time on the game.

He can’t help but get a vicious little grin on his face when he imagines their reactions to the Healer of the group, a slight, brown-skinned woman named Vashti with large dark eyes and a riot of black curls coming from a widow’s peak.

His one rule was that she didn’t die.

This is a little bit about revenge.

 

4.

 

Renly isn’t out, not in a real way. Robert would probably kill him, though he’s not sure how far into purposeful it would stray- just a punch, but magically enhanced strength and charm has gotten his brother out of a lot of problems, even if it never got him in Lyanna Stark’s bed. Tywin Lannister would… look, he was creeped by the guy before, and Lysa has let some things about Hoster Tully and Tully duty magic slip and considering Lannister probably gets his rocks off to the idea of the family image…

Yeah, he’s not coming out. Stannis probably knows, because Stannis actually gave a shit when he was a kid, even if they can barely sit in a room together now. 

Shyra doesn’t know, though she knows enough of his plan to guess he needs to cut ties to Baratheon funds fast.

The problem is, most of Renly’s inheritance money comes from shares. In a company held by Robert and Cersei. And going to Joffrey sooner rather than later, because Robert was trying to kill himself while still getting his ass dumped in consecrated ground. So even if he doesn't do anything, the money isn't going to be coming in much longer.

And so Renly wants to gracefully bow out, but he wants an excuse to bow out. Another company is a perfect reason. And then he can get an apartment, and live openly with Loras, out of the city, because he still doesn’t want to put Loras through that.

He just needs this miracle to happen.

 

5.

 

Oh, god, she was so _young_.

He’d known Joffrey was chasing the Stark girl, seen Lysa’s lips purse, and rolled his eyes, because Cersei would go all Norma Bates and chase Sansa away like all the other girls after one or two shitty dates.

But there was that creepy look in Joffrey’s eyes, and he remembered Robert’s wildfire rage when he thought Lyanna kidnapped. And then afterwords, when she made it clear that enchantment or no, blood on the streets or no, she wanted _nothing_ to do with him, called him wild and cruel and thoughtless himself and what a pair they would make. Ned Stark had held him back, then, but he'd just gone and married Cersei Lannister because she was nothing like Lyanna, and Lyanna never came back to town. (No one would hold Joffrey back.)

He remembered that Tywin Lannister had ordered a massacre when he suspected that Aerys killed Joanna Lannister.

Renly didn’t drink- the age difference between Robert and Renly was enough he’d seen why getting smashed was a shit plan in the long term, and the Siege had left him enough of a control freak to hate getting drunk.

But after seeing Joffrey with his arm around Sansa Stark’s waist, the girl’s blue eyes wide and hopeful, he’d snagged a bottle of something strong looking, drove, and locked himself in Loras’ apartment to start drinking.

Loras had held his shoulders while he threw it up, and a hungover Renly called Ned Stark and said they needed to talk.

 

6.

 

Stannis came to the office, a curious Shireen in tow.

“Shireen’s doing college tours,” he said, stiffly. “We just wanted to say goodbye.”

Renly blinked. “Ah. Goodbye. Let me know if you want any fun people stuff to do,” he said to his niece, winking, and was rewarded by a shy grin.

“Can I talk to you in private?” Stannis said, looking uncomfortable.

“Sure,” Renly said slowly, looking at Loras from across the room. “Shireen, why don’t you let Brienne give you a tour of the office?”

They went to the break room, because Renly had a conference room, but he really wanted coffee right now. This was all too Twilight Zone.

“Did you talk to Ned Stark about his daughter?” Stannis asked.

Renly tightened his shoulders. “The cat, Stannis. Remember the cat?”

“I remember the damn cat, Renly, but…” Stannis sighed. “You didn’t think.”

“I should have waited until he hurt her?” Renly snapped, not wanting to bring up Cersei’s bruises.

“I think this will be a bigger mess than you anticipated, and I am keeping out of it,” he said, striding out and leaving Renly to stew.

 

7.

 

Three things happen in the next two months.

The first is that Stannis seems to be settling in Boston for a while, which Renly expected. He sends Shireen photos from the office, and some exclusive screenshots and a copy of the game that make her popular with some geek kids, which makes him the Cool Uncle. (He does not send a photo of himself sticking his tongue out at Stannis when Shireen tells him this. He takes it, Loras sends it.)

The second is that A Time For Wolves is such a smash hit Renly sells off all his shares to Baratheon Industries to Stannis via Shyra, earning him a scolding that sounds almost fond.

The third, at the very edge of those two months, is that Ned Stark is found murdered outside Old Baelor’s Church and Cersei makes a show of taking in his daughter in her time of grief.

Renly rages, and the storms outside reflect his mood.


	3. mistakes made on purpose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arianne is shiny and bright and full of her own kind of fuck you, but she's still rockin' it on a precipice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "We the Dreamers" by Kate Voegele.

1.

Arianne isn’t… she isn’t the battle mage expected of her cousins. Her cousins have their weapons, however deceptive they may seem, and they are unquestionably lethal. She isn’t dutiful little Quentyn, or Trys, who was Mother’s comfort before Mother got tired of the tension and blew out of town.

So she isn’t really sure what she is supposed to do, because she is meant to be the heiress to Sunspear, keeper of the gates and a water witch who protects those without a voice. It is what the children of the Rhoyne do, and Nymeria’s children sit in the shadows and pose a quiet reminder to the Targaryens and others that they can’t do what they want.

But Dad doesn’t seem to get the message, because he steps between her and what she wants to do to help, and what is left is boring enough to kill her interest.

So she does what any self-respecting teenage girl does, and gets into trouble. She doesn’t want to be a lawyer- they have enough in the family, and she’s self-aware enough to know her talents lie elsewhere.

2.

She waits until she’s twenty-three until she gets knocked up, at least. And her baby daddy is human, which is an improvement on Aunt Elia. She knows better than to say that out loud, though. It’ll hurt Aunt Elia, and anyway, Rhaegar and his Hand aren’t totally broken, not with Blue as a good little puppet and Jaime Lannister with a white collar on his shoulders.

She doesn’t tell Dad who the dad is, though. Tyene knows, because the only person the banshee girl really gossips with is her, and Rhaenys, who pinches her nose and reminds Arianne that she is years from finishing her medical degree, she is not delivering the damn kid. But they both settle on the couch to eat snacks and just relax, and she loves them for it.

But, she supposes, it means she should grow up, a little. Not completely- her friends don’t leave her, even if some of the old families call her names and she has to perfect that vicious little twisty grin Aunt Elia used for her own purposes. 

And she still dances, because the music is the closest thing she can get to the River that human hands can make, and she uses herself as a beacon while her hunters draw out the ghouls and vultures who think that just because Dragon Dick Rhaegar is weakened and the Baratheon/Lannister block is on the rise that the innocents and ignorant are easy prey.

And if some people don’t get how she is rebalancing her life, trying not to be either of her parents, well, fuck them.

3.

She starts writing for real while she can’t sleep, six months into her pregnancy, loosely basing it on the histories she was taught as a child, and the stories she spun as easy as breathing. It comes easy in some places, and some places she wants to throw it away and do something simple, but the challenge is right there, and she wants to rub it in Dad and Quent’s face- Look at me, I can do this!

She finishes it and she does the research, and it isn’t until Deria was a year old that she gets a yes and can just hold her daughter in her arms and swirl tiredly around the room before taking a nap.

Then, after calling Tyene, she realizes that among the stories and imagination she is fictionalizing real life, and demons, and she laughs, bitter and hysteric and just not giving a fuck anymore. 

She tells Dad that she is going to visit Mom for a bit, show her Deria, putting off the visit until the book is starting to actually pick up press.

Shit, she didn’t actually think this would happen.

4.

Mom finds the whole mess hilarious, which is just brilliant, but she is also reading Arianne’s book from an author copy that Arianne had desperately worked to keep out of Dad’s hands. 

“You used a pen name, at least,” Mom said, shaking her head. “And it is lovely, Ari. I knew you would find your own path.”

And, oh, those words would have been such a balm to Arianne’s fractured heart ten years ago. Now Arianne is too old and too jaded to find comfort in her distant mother who had cut out her heart to save it from a slow breaking.

“Did I tell you about the sequel?” Arianne said, tossing her hair as if she wasn’t worried at all.

5.

Dad leaves a voicemail while she is in Denmark.

Arianne deletes it without listening.

6.

She comes back when the sequel is edited and emailed, hoping her key still works.

It does, and a tiny knot in her heart unravels.

Her father is waiting in her room in his chair, looking more worn than ever, and Arianne knows that she isn’t going to be able to travel on a whim for much longer. If he didn’t just want to disinherit and exile her in person, that is- Quentyn was always more like him, after all, and she was always the flighty one, the one too like Uncle Oberyn. And even Uncle Oberyn had been heard to say the gods had been kind in making him the youngest.

She met her father’s eyes. “Hello.”

“Congratulations, I heard your career is having a promising start,” he said, and she frowned, waiting for the rebuke.

“It is- reviews and sales both, which is apparently a rare combination,” she said. “Deria is asleep, so if you want to kick us out, wait until morning.”

He looked shocked. “Kick you out?”

“You have always wanted to,” she said, crossing her arms. She was jetlagged, angry, and she just wanted this over with. It wasn’t the great triumphant battle she had imagined as a teenager, but then again, so very little went the way teenaged Arianne had planned it.

“I never wanted to,” he said. “I may have struggled to understand you, but I have always loved you. You have always been my daughter and the future sorceress of Sunspear.” His grin was rueful. “I think the house would kick me out if I wanted to disinherit you.”

Her shocked laughter turned into a yawn, and she realized he could still half-tuck her into bed.

7.

When news of Eddard Stark’s death hit, Oberyn and Father looked at each other, and Arianne sent Deria from the room with a glare.

“I am an adult with a child,” Arianne pointed out, commanding the house to keep Deria from listening in. “So, Lannisters?”

“What motive, though?” Doran asked, and Arianne wondered if he already knew.

“Well, I know he never approved of Tywin, and Renly told me Cersei’s son was a sadistic little shit. And the fact that Cersei basically snatched the Stark girl…” Arianne breathed through her nose.

Probably shouldn’t have said that in front of Uncle Oberyn.

“We’ll need to wait for a weakness,” Doran said heavily. “Oberyn, I know you have been waiting for a chance to prosecute- can I trust you not to ruin it?”

“For the girl’s sake, if Arianne’s expression is an accurate prediction,” Oberyn said, and Arianne was just remembering Renly sneaking to see her and saying something about a cat. “I may need to pass it off, but I know who can be trusted with this.”

“I think it is,” Arianne whispered.

Then, of course, the Starks found out from the spirits that Joffrey had ordered the murder, and Tywin got involved.

It got messy, and Arianne took over the internal workings of Sunspear as much out of self defense as anything else.

Mage wars brought up bad memories.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deria Martell, in World of Ice and Fire, was the heiress of Dorne who treated with Aegon I and gave him a letter that shook him up enough to give up on Dorne. Some say it was from a Rhaenys who had been captured and tortured for years, saying that she would be allowed to die if he did.
> 
> (...Hoping Arianne thought to ask her cousin about the name.)


	4. and then call me home (jon)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon grew up between two worlds, both trying to define him and with two parents who kind of failed at being a parent.
> 
> ...Good thing he is supernaturally good at finding things?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from "Sara" by Fleetwood Mac, though I suppose it is more Lyanna-ish. 
> 
> Ashley Seaver and Andi Swann is stolen cheerfully from Criminal Minds season six, where Ashley is played by Rachel Nichols. For the Netflix inclined, the season six finale is probably the most relevant episode. (Also the knowledge that her father was the Redmond Ripper, a CM-verse serial killer.)
> 
> Andi Swann's relation to the Swanns of the city are currently unknown.

1.

Mom hasn’t been home to Winterfell since she was twenty, and Jon grew up with the knowledge that it was somehow his fault. Mom hasn’t been to Dragonstone, either, never staying in one place long. Sometimes, when they were young, she took Jon, and it was great- they went to the Catacombs in Paris, and Disney, and other fun places.

But Lyanna Stark wasn’t someone who can raise a child, she said with sad eyes, so Jon was raised with his dad and big brother, clambering around Dragonstone and playing games. Sometimes Rhae joined them, his big sister with her pretty voice and cups of hot chocolate who let him hide in her bed and told him stories. He promised to be her knight and she gave him a grin.

“I’m gonna be my own knight, Jon,” she promised, and he believes her. She was the one who told him to go to Winterfell, that she’s pretty sure his cousins won’t kill him on sight, and it was Dad who was the jackass back then.

“I love you, you are a brat but none of it was your fault,” she said, twenty and having shouted at Dad at the top of her voice over whatever. “They’ll know that. I don’t blame you.”

And then Jon remembered the scars that had always been part of Rhaenys, and she muttered about angsty thirteen year olds. “Seriously.”

Robb was happy to meet a cousin his age, all ruddy curls and beaming dimples, while Sansa was quiet and he thought she hated him until he realized she was a weird kind of shy.

Then they dragged him to Winterfell and he realized that whatever weirdness was going on with his mom and uncle, his Stark relatives still were willing to give him a shot.

2.

He’d never lost anything. It had driven Aegon crazy when he was little and didn’t always get the idea of private property, but yeah, Jon never lost anything.

He could find people, too. Most nights he had a routine, the way some people prayed or… whatever actual human people did. (He might want to ask Ashley, one day.)

He checked on Blue first, because his older brother was an idiot and knowing if he needed to call someone was a chore.

Rhae was safe and as much a comfort as she’d been to a lost little boy, sunshine and asphodel. She’d gotten out of the city and out of the family, and he checked on her when cases when bad, because her stubbornness and faith was enough to help.

He checked on Robb rarely, mostly before he called when he got back to his apartment, making sure his cousin wasn’t busy.

Arya was a quick check and a laugh in the back of his mind, something he needed before being dragged out by coworkers who thought he needed to get laid.

He didn’t check on his mother often, about as often as she sent him emails. He didn’t… the distant, quicksilver woman his childhood recalled wasn’t what he needed. He told his coworkers the truth, that she worked with a humanitarian group, and his father had received custody. He didn’t tell them about enchantments, left wives, or his Uncle Brandon.

He kept tabs on Ashley Seaver, his partner, mostly because the blonde seemed to be a bigger trouble magnet than Arya, and that's saying something. She frowns when he grins and is always there when things get hairy, but between his magic instincts and her clever mind they do pretty well.

3.

Blue knew better than to show up during a case, mostly because wrestling a direwolf was not an experience that even a demon prince of... probably recklessness wanted to do twice. And Jon had made it clear that he would not tolerate magic ruining a chance to bring a case to a good end.

But Blue was waiting for him outside his apartment, legs crossed pretzel style as he leaned against his door, eating Chinese food.

“You aren’t answering your phone,” he said around a mouth full of meat.

“I just got off a case, there was a guy taking college girls for…” he let it drop, because Blue had stopped eating and nodded, as if accepting that Jon had his quirks. "It strayed into our original case, so it got messy, small town, I literally just got off a plane from Oregon."

Also, Mom had been more than half-enchanted when she ran away with Dad, and she’d been in college, so Ashley was going to be watching him like a hawk for a week based on the public records alone. He watches her when whichever cog in their current machine has kids, so he can't complain.

“Oregon? Is that place even real?" Blue's face scrunched up before turning serious. "Can we talk?”

“What’s wrong?” Jon asks, as Blue uncoils.

“Robert Baratheon died of a heart attack, last night,” Blue said when Jon unspelled the door.

Jon tilted his head, knowing that wasn’t all. But Blue was more interested in walking around his apartment and studying everything, long pale fingers gliding over wood and stone.

It was strange, how alien his brother looked in his home.

“Blue, what else happened,” he said, when Aegon stared a little too long at a picture of Jon and Rhae at his Academy graduation. “And don’t pout, I invited you.”

“True,” Aegon said. “Your Uncle Ned was found beheaded on the steps of Old Baelor’s Church, and we think Joffery is keeping Sansa holed up at Storm’s End.”

Jon is on four feet before he can blink, and he clicks, feeling for the daisy scent and the touch of good-book-paper that is Sansa, feeling a blank sort of numbness and pain and grief below that.

He howls, and the silencing spell Aegon puts around his apartment is the best kindness his brother knows how to give.

4.

Sansa is missing a week when the first Lannister man tries to fuck with one of his cases, and Jon reveals himself to be his father’s son.

The man is cheap hired muscle with a Valyrian steel dagger, following Jon from the club he had drawn their mark from, and he felt the other predator like a twitch between his shoulders.

“They have backup,” he hisses, even though he has a feeling that this isn’t about small scale trafficking.  They still don’t know who Littlefinger really is, and if some Goldcloak ass with balls bigger than his brains tries to ruin their one good lead in months, he’ll get Rhae to take him through the Wild Ways to Storm’s End or Casterly and tear the throat of any Lannister he can find.

“Stay calm, Snow,” Andi Swann said over the comms, “we got you.”

He pretended to stagger, and let the obvious mark make his move, and as soon as the taser hit and before he got zapped, he swiped at the knees and the man he was supposed to be “meeting” went down.

The other guy decided to jump in, because Valyrian steel is hard to see by streetlight when hidden by a good sleeve, and if he really was drugged he’d be fucked.

But he isn’t, and Jon knows magic enough to make the Lannister man suffer.

The doctors at the hospital are baffled to discover that the attacker suffers from frostbite blisters and damage to the cartilage of his hands that will never repair, and no mention of magic is made at the sharp, murderous smile Jon makes when the other agents get there.

The dagger is in Jon’s jacket, safe and sound.

5.

 

The next blonde at his apartment door is Ashley Seaver, who is crossing her legs and has her gun visible beneath the jacket. Which is worse- Ashley never wore it comfortably, for all that she excelled in out of the box ideas when it came to getting out of trouble.

“Come in,” Jon said, knowing this is going to suck.

“What is going on?” she asked, and Jon debates lying, but he’s heard about Stafford Lannister dying, and the mage war Robb is leading, loudly enough even those not in the know are curious.

It’ll be easier to tell her, he decides, mostly because he is tired enough that he doesn’t care, and the benefits of the city was that he had places where people knew, and dammit, illusions itched. It would be nice to have someone else watching his back properly.

He was a direwolf in a quick, lolling movement, trying to aim for cute puppy, which was hard when you were the size of a pony.

Ashley blinked, doll-eyes unfocusing and refocusing. “...I always wanted a puppy,” she said, slightly distantly.

He made an annoyed barking noise at that, but she’s scratching at his ears and doesn’t seem too freaked.

Besides her father was a serial killer, she couldn’t judge too harshly at the bit where his father was an actual demon… right?

6.

 

Robb and his mother died at the hands of Walder Frey, and Jon felt it, the mostly absent thread that vanished in a haze of confusion and a sudden sharp pain.

He wanted to fix the thread, because Bran and Rickon were lost already- the true-fey had stolen Rickon to save his life, and who knew if Rickon could ever come home, and all he could find when he searched for Bran was the flutter of raven wings and the taste of weirwood sap on his tongue.

He’d cracked and asked Dad, who had gone very grave, and told him about the fate of Brynden Rivers, called Bloodraven, who had been Hand and anchor to two Dragon Kings.

Then Arya was at his apartment, hair cropped too short and face too closed off, and he ruffled what was left of her hair as her promised to do what he could.

7.

 

The letter is from Oberyn, warning them that he has a handpicked, small team prepared to arrest Cersei for poisoning Robert with normal nonmagic methods and tax evasion, and it will most likely be a bloodbath.

Daemon Sand is sent to fetch Sansa with Jon under so many illusions it hurts, and they just manage to get her, his cousin wearing actual manacles that bound her powers.

Sansa is a wreck when they get her out, between being held by Joffrey and what happened during the mage war. Jon takes one look at her, about ten pounds lighter and covered in bruises, and makes a quick decision that he knows Arya will agree with.

San Antonio is warm and not the city at all, and Rhaenys had a stone tumbledown that she’d bought with Dad’s guilt money and had bespelled to hell and back.

  
Rhaenys looks at them and smiles, and he knows she has two guest rooms ready. “Hot chocolate?”


	5. have you heard what they're saying on the street?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhaenys Targaryen is a woman fragmented into so many pieces she isn't recognizable as the demon of seduction she would have been.
> 
> Which is probably a good thing, because one brother is too wild and one too serious, and she thinks she has a balance all her own, 'til fucking Joffrey Whoever-he-really-is goes and ruins everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The hospital in San Antonio Rhaenys/Beth Blackwood works at is San Antonio Memorial, from NBC's The Night Shift. No need for watching, but it is a decent show once it lands on its feet.
> 
> Betha Blackwood was Egg/Aegon the Unlikely's wife and Queen, and Rhaeny's great-great-grandmother. I switched it to Beth because GRRM plays with names too.

1.

_Once upon a time, there was a princess. A demon princess, but still. She lived in a city with actual magic, and had a father who could make the stars weep when he sung, and a mother who twisted words enough to make demons weep._

_And then the monsters came, with their knife-claws of Valyrian steel long and sharp. And they held her by the wrists and arms, and she kicked, and the claws sunk in._

_It hurt, and the princess screamed, and her demon prince uncle came running, and he died with his throat slit ear to ear, and she bled, and she used whatever magic she could to live._

_She went to the Wild Ways, the shadows and light and ghosts, and she bled there until her papa came for her._

_She came out… different, and if people thought that meant broken, that was their problem._

_Because the Wild Ways were alive, in their way, but they didn’t have a voice. And the princess had a voice, but she wasn’t going to be alive very much longer. So the blood rose vines twined in her hair like a mother’s touch, and a bargain was struck._

 

2.

 

Rhaenys left the city behind her as soon as she can. She didn’t cut her long black hair, because under the illusions she needed to have spelled for her, her hair has tiny vines of living shadow and blood roses twined throughout, and it is a literal pain.

Her nails were kept short, though, and would be even if she didn’t need them to be for practical reasons. Her grandfather’s voice still haunts her nightmares every so often.

She changed her name to Elizabeth Blackwood, after her great-great-grandmother, the one who gave herself to the trees after Summerhall, and set herself on track for a medical degree. It might not be enough to convince everyone she is dead, which would be safest, but it helps convince them she is broken.

Broken, she is Tywin Lannister’s living triumph, an ever-playing repetition of “Rains of Castamere”.

Fuck that, she thought with a vampire smile as she slipped into the Wild Ways, whispers in her mind and ghosts in her dreams, a smile here, or a simple message to a selkie there. The bloody thorns and shadows that clung with her touch were emphasis enough for most.

For the rest… well, she could still cast spells, even if the way they presented were different then Aegon’s easy charm and the revels that followed him.

 

3.

 

Her family all decided without telling her that her couch has magical properties. Either that or her tire iron, a gift from Garin Greenblood when she went to college, was somehow Dark Sister.

It was the only reason she can think of for everyone deciding to try and stay with her whenever they have a fight. (A tiny part of her mind wonders if it is a quirk of the roads, the wandering girl and her safe haven to come home to.)

She doesn’t mind it when Jon stays, because she didn’t like leaving Jon alone in Dragonstone with Dad when he was a kid, and he likes the human world in a way Aegon doesn’t.

Mom stays sometimes, and Rhae fusses over her, because Mom likes forgetting she is a human with a chronic illness and not Super Lawyer.

Arianne and her dad have almost as many issues as Rhae and her dad, but Arianne let her study or whatever and they just watch trashy tv and movies now. (And lets be real, the amount of hot shirtless people having sex Rhaenys is going to see in the flesh? Not that many- she’s aware she inherited both of her parent’s good looks, but Valyrian steel had a nasty bite. Forty-eight stabs, slashes and twists of the knife had left varying scars over her skin, taking years for her to regain full range of movement. She’d been lucky he’d wanted her face pretty, one of the cops had said, and she didn’t know what Dad had done to him when he found out about that bit of stupidity. But the scars were still there, some of them tainted by shadow, and for all that “all cats look grey in the dark”, lumpy scar tissue was apparently enough of a turn off that Rhaenys didn’t get it on all that much, aside from when Edmure was mournful and wishing for the stars or whatever.)

But this…

“Aunt Ellaria,” she said, addressing the more reasonable of the two. Neither reply.

She has a small bucket of loose ice that she set up when Uncle Oberyn first came, sulking about his fight with Aunt Ellaria, and she opened a small double-door through the Ways, grabbing the bucket from her freezer..

“Hello,” she warned them, one last time.

Then she tossed the bucket on them, earning sputters and curses as she raised her eyebrows. (All three- a stray blow had bisected an eyebrow. Arianne had made her dress like a pirate for the Halloween after, and she had laughed for the first time since the attack.)

No one crashed on her couch for a month, and then it was a sleepy, apologetic Obara, who was investigating something for Uncle Doran nearby.

Rhaenys stitched her up and sent her off the next day, promising to keep an eye out for anyone called Littlefinger.

 

4.

 

San Antonio is far enough from the city to feel safe, and after a few years in San Francisco, she is kind of happy not to see a single goddamn mountain pretending to be a hill.

Little Elia and rollerskating would haunt her nightmares forever. And the night shift is perfect for a naturally nocturnal woman.

The hospital wasn’t perfect- it was underfunded and supported too large an area, but she loved the staff, which was wild and mixed-up and and a tiny bit broken, like her.

But mostly, Dr. Beth Blackwood was a tiny woman from the New York area who had a complicated broken family she hated talking about, a nearly “magical” knack for picking out the disasters about to happen, and had a talent for truly _filthy_ off-the-cuff poetry.

Also, pranking. She and Kenny, one of the nurses, has an unofficial contest in place to see who can pull off the best one. (She insists that the one with the hog and Ragosa the occasionally useful bean-counter’s office was best, but since she used magic to do it, claiming it is a bit tricky.)

Rhaenys Targaeryn, The Lady of the Wild Ways, is rich as sin and has Daddy’s guilt money well invested with some seers, so occasionally she makes an anonymous donation with very careful strings to make things work.

Occasionally the two personas blend together- TC sees her, the one day when she goes on the copter with the other doctor, there is a fuck-up somewhere along the line that is actually neither of their faults, they can prove it. (Molotov cocktails and half-crazed warlocks, she finds out later, from a werewolf who runs a bar that mostly shelters travelling supernaturals.)

He raises his eyebrows, because they should be crispy bacon. Two weeks later, she widens her eyes innocently and hopes he doesn’t remember the sharp wave of her hand and muttered doorway spell when he and the built-like-a-shithouse resident Drew come in after a big, burly guy turns violent and tries to stab her.

Only at that point she’s kind of staring at the patient with wide eyes, her braid slightly undone and a slight scratch to match the scar on her other cheek, but otherwise unharmed.

“I might need help getting him back on the bed,” she said evenly, looking up at them.

 

5.

 

She doesn’t want to get involved with the city again, and as much as she hates herself for it, she doesn’t do anything at first, when she hears Ned Stark dies.

No, no, she takes off the studded earrings, hidden in the curved part of the cartilage of her ears, that holds her illusions in place, flexing the now visible set of extra knuckles and shucking off her shoes as she grabs a candle, stepping into the Wild Ways.

It is always twilight, or always just before dawn. It doesn’t really matter- what matters is the packed dirt and moss under her feet, the vines that messily edge the path and match her hair. (And that had been something that had been entirely part of her bargain, she knew. Before, dad said, she was going to be the lady of seduction. After, he said, with some curiosity, she was something else entirely. Mom had pinched her nose and muttered something about him occasionally being worse than Oberyn.)

She lights a candle, and she prays to whoever would listen to her prayers. She prays for Ned Stark’s soul, and she prays for Sansa, and for her youngest brother.

And when Jon brings her the Stark girls to shelter, she smiles and feels like there is something she can do, finally.

 

6.

 

Rhaenys had been bouncing when she slid into Beth Blackwood’s persona that day- Arya had made dinner for her before work, and Sansa had actually laughed when she described the Hog Incident the night before.

That had lasted until TC had sidled up to her after she had a fairly simple barfight set of stitches done, face troubled. “Hey, Beth, can I talk to you?”

“I am not talking to Jordan to save your ass, fine as it may be,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows.

“Oh, you like my ass?” he said, tossing his hair. She was tempted to tell him to cut it or grow it out so he could have a man bun, but she and Baby Intern Krista had started flicking hair clips at him, and these things needed to be done in stages.

“Please, you show the damn thing off,” she said. Because he literally lounged in a kiddie pool before work, which was a nice view but vain as a cat or a Martell. “Now, how did you piss off our boss- who is also your ex, because only you can have that sort of drama?”

“Actually, I didn’t!” he protested. “Yet,” he added, with a surprising touch of self-awareness. “This is about my patient, the woman who was found in the car wreck, who we think is a victim some sort of kidnapping?”

And “Beth” had admitted to knowing someone who worked in the FBI and handled shit like that. “I’ll call my friend.”

“I think she might also…” he paused. “The thing with the fire. That was you, and I didn’t ask because you did save my ass, but there is a pattern I’m noticing, and I wanted you to check.”

She looked up at TC, who was looking very serious. The man was fucked-up, and trouble with a capital T, but hey, it wasn’t as if that wasn’t endemic to the people she knew from the city.

He also gave a damn about people, which wasn’t.

“I’ll take a look,” she said, and halfway to the girl’s bed she stopped and paused, because the cloying, too-sweet magic made her want to gag.

“You okay?” Jordan had come up, looking between them, and she could see the drunken bluebirds that were still between the two of them. “TC, what is going on?”

“Migraine, TC is just making sure I get somewhere private before I hurl,” Rhaenys half-lied. The bed was on the way, she could do this. There was a solid pain right between her left eye and ear, and it traveled down. to pool in her shoulder muscles.

“Okay, let me know if you need to go home,” Jordan said, because Jordan was actually kind of awesome.

She drew on the Ways, ruefully admitting that this is why Targaryens had human companions to anchor themselves to. The smell of sun-drenched wolfsbane would cling to her for days, and her reactions would be slightly… not off, because that would hint that she would fuck up, but different.

The girl was thin and pale, pinched looking, with brown hair and the look-feel of the Old Practitioners who used Weirwood and winter in their magic. There was the scar of a broken manacle on her wrist.

“Some businessman from New Orleans found her and called it in,” TC said, breaking her train of thought.

“Jeyne Poole,” Rhaenys breathed, remembering Sansa’s friend who went missing at the same time she did. “Her name is Jeyne Poole.”

He caught her as she stumbled, half-dragging her to the lockers. She clawed out her earrings, needing the illusions and their limitations off now and not caring, because she needed to burn the tainted magic out of her hair and skin.

“That explains a lot,” TC said, and she breathed, just not caring because everything was clear and right, and she knew she could burn out the remnants of that magic with a snap of her fingers.

Ruined. Hah.

“I’m not human, not going to steal your soul, I use the earrings as an illusion because have you seen this hair?” she shrugged. “I am me, I am shadow, I am the night, I am too busty to be Batman.” She tilted her head. “Huntress? I’d be a bitchin’ Huntress.”

He snickered. “So, whatever did it was magic?”

She nodded. “Nasty feeling- it side-swiped me, mostly out of surprise. I’m going to call a few other magic users, and yes, TC, I will teach you to recognize magic.”

He was like a troublesome, shoe-eating puppy who also happened to be a fucking genius. If it wasn’t for the drunken bluebirds whenever he and Jordan were in the same room, she would risk the “all cats are grey in the dark” thing again. She had inherited the Martell family trashy, trashy taste in men, after all.

She could still enter the betting pool on if he could fit underwear in those jeans, though. She wasn’t a _saint_. 

 

7.

 

She’s not surprised when none of the Baratheons survive to go to trial, but there are still other issues to deal with. Tywin Lannister is guilty as sin, but he made as much damage as possible to try and tie his opponents in knots. Edmure Tully is still fighting for Riverrun House, and there is the squabbling over so many minor magical lines and houses. Some idiot Lannister lackey is apparently trying to hold Nightsong, and that means Arianne and Renly are both bitching at her when she wants to sleep, because she is nocturnal, dammit.

The north end of the city is most important in her mind, though, because Winterfell was a cardinal point house, the way Sunspear, Casterly, and Storm’s End were, and having it in the hands of the Boltons made them all miserable. 

So, Rhaenys knew, they needed a lawyer, one who was gentle enough to not to set Sansa off and able to put up with Arya’s wildness. And, she supposed, one in the know about magic. 

There is a wicked sense of humor in her mind when she reminds Sansa that Quentyn would be perfect for helping her get Winterfell back.

Now they just had to worry about Jeyne, who didn’t know much about who had arranged for her to be a kept mage, only that he was called Littlefinger. And why Jon had perked up like he was in wolf form when she mentioned the name to him.


End file.
